Burlesque Scenes in Four Tableaux by Igor Stravinsky and Alexandre Benois.

Music by Igor Stravinsky.

Scenes and Dances by Michel Fokine.

Scenery and Costumes Designed by Alexandre Benois.

THE Puppet has always exercised upon the human mind a curious fascination. There is a lure in the antics of the animated doll so reminiscent of, yet so unlike, ourselves which most find irresistible. Punch and Judy with their attendant satellites furnish, of course, a classic case in point.

The reason is that the puppet show discharges all the functions of the ordinary theatre, with this advantage—that it gives its spectators the privilege of feeling as the gods upon Olympus. With amused and tolerant eye they watch the petty strife of puny creatures who, but for the lack of high divinity, would be life-like effigies of themselves. It may be that “the proper study of mankind is man,” but the occupation is pleasurable only when it can be pursued with such detachment as, in the most complete form, the puppet show makes possible. The travesty of human passions which the mimic stage affords is near enough the truth to intrigue the fancy, while sufficiently remote from reality to leave equanimity undisturbed. No wonder all men show a kindly regard for the queer little figures that provide parodies of themselves which are shrewd, but not too apposite!

PÉtrouchka, it is understood, is roughly the Russian counterpart of our familiar Punch, though he would seem to have really but little in common with the riotous Falstaffian character of the English hero. In the ballet named after him, however, PÉtrouchka represents not so much certain human traits as himself, the essential puppet. In its trivial way the theme thus presented is a big one. A ballet woven round the puppet stage would have been in any case attractive. To take us behind the scenes and show the mingled comedy and tragedy of the puppet world was a true dramatic inspiration. In the result “PÉtrouchka” is an achievement perhaps finer than even its authors had intended.

Not only in their miming, but in their scenery also, the Russians have a subtle art of suggesting local atmosphere. There is a bleak, grey quality about the background to the scene with which “PÉtrouchka” opens that conveys an instant sense of Russian cold—a dull frigidity which not all the gay and vivid hues of the parti-coloured crowd thronging the stage can thaw, which, indeed, the latter merely enhance, as they in turn are intensified by contrast against so perfect a foil. One has a sense of opaque, leaden skies, of snow impending.

It is fair-time, the last few days of high revelry before the Lenten fast begins. Carnival is in full swing, and folk of every station are making merry amongst the booths and raree-shows that

have been set up in the market-place. A spirit of careless jollity prevails, and as the mingled nature of the moving throng betrays, the licence of carnival time has broken down all barriers of ceremonious restraint. Coachmen, Cossacks, nurse girls and grisettes rub shoulders freely with ladies and their escorts, smart officers and sober burgesses.

Itinerant vendors offer their wares among the promenaders, and an eager rogue sets up, for tempting of the revellers’ purses, the clumsy peep-show which he carries on his back. The coins begin to roll in as the gaping sightseers gather round, but his harvest is interrupted by the greater attractions of a dancing girl, who begins upon a strip of carpet laid with care upon the ground a posturing dance, to the accompaniment of strains from a hurdy-gurdy turned by her male companion. She likewise is not allowed to hold the field undisputed, for a rival—also attended by a portable organ—establishes herself hard by. The pair vie with each other in elegant poses and slow rhythmic movements, while the thin strains of the opposing hurdy-gurdies dolefully assail the ear.

Some coachmen, challenging each other to feats of agility, break into a dance. The crowd stays to watch them, paying but little attention to the frequent appeals for patronage of an old man stationed on the top of a booth, who beseeches consideration of his astonishingly lengthy beard. More likely to attract the eye are the pair of handsome gipsy girls who join him on his elevated platform. But it is not until the coachmen pause for breath in their vigorous saltations that the sirens overhead succeed in fastening their allurements upon a festive and inebriated merchant who has pushed his way, with uncertain gait, to the front.

The sudden beating of a tattoo by a couple of drummers, clad in gay livery, summons the crowd to a long booth standing in the background, of which the curtains have hitherto remained drawn. The people press forward with such eager curiosity that the drummers have some ado to keep them at a sufficient distance; but the apparition of a strange, antique head, which is suddenly thrust through an opening in the curtains of the booth, arrests the attention of all.

The head looks quaintly right and left: then the curtains are parted, and the figure of its owner is revealed. It is no ordinary showman or cheap-jack who steps forward and salutes the ring of attentive spectators. The cabalistic signs upon the long robe in which his lean figure is swathed, his cap of curious shape, his flowing beard and yellow parchment skin—these are all attributes which belong rather to a wise magician of the East than to a peripatetic showman. The spectators are evidently interested; there is a something about this queer personage which fascinates and holds them. When, after courtly obeisances, he puts to his lips the flute that he holds in his hand, they press forward with undisguised curiosity.

With gestures odd and unexpected the strange old man pipes forth a tune upon his flute—a jerky little air to which he jerkily sways and twists his lank body. The gaping onlookers follow his antics with half-mesmerised gaze, and when presently he takes the flute from his lips and steps down to the front of the booth they are all agog to learn what sequel to this prelude the drawn curtains will reveal.

When drawn at length the curtains are, an engaging spectacle greets the eye. Propped in a row upon slender rods are three life-size puppet figures. In the middle is the Dancer, most radiant of dolls, with the pinkest of waxen cheeks and the glassiest of stares, elegantly arrayed in a striped jacket and pantaloons. On one side of her is the Blackamoor, a fierce and swarthy fellow, resplendent in green and gold, with gorgeous turban on his head; on the other, poor PÉtrouchka, a grotesque figure of fun tricked out in glaring and fantastic motley.

Such are the three puppets which the ancient showman presents to the enthralled spectators—and puppets only, mere things of tinsel and sawdust, they seem as the curtains are drawn aside. They hang limply upon their supports, not making even of lifelessness other than a puppet’s feeble travesty. There is occult power in the showman’s hand, however, and as he touches each in turn the figures are galvanised of a sudden into seeming life. With a quick spasmodic movement their limbs stiffen, their bodies are jerked upright upon the props, and a semblance of alertness is obtained. It is as though on the instant some hidden clockwork springs had been wound up tense and taut.

To a burst of lively music three pairs of legs start nimbly dancing. The bodies of the puppets, seemingly fastened to the supports so plainly visible, remain fixed and stationary. Heads and arms move jerkily and unfreely, but whatever the mechanical defects in other directions, at least the puppets’ legs are well and truly hung. They beat a merry tattoo in concert on the floor; they bend and straighten, kick, recoil and leap with such inspiriting and infectious gusto, that blithe and nimble feet are soon a-jigging in the crowd of admiring and applauding onlookers.

The giddy reel is at its height when, upon a mutual impulse, the puppets start from their supports, and tripping gaily from their little platforms in the booth, come forward and continue the dance in the midst of the astonished spectators. The latter, much excited by a manoeuvre so unexpected, gather hurriedly round. The drummers strive to keep a clear arena for the puppets, while the antique showman, sardonically aware of the sensation which his dolls are making, rubs covetous and expectant palms.

The dance develops into burlesque pantomime, PÉtrouchka making a grotesque attack upon the Blackamoor with a stick which the showman thrusts into his stiffly jointed arms. Captivated by this new feature of an entertainment already novel, the laughing onlookers press more closely round, and the curtain falls upon the hilarious crowd delightedly applauding the conclusion of the pantomime and dance.

When the curtain, after a short interval, rises again a very different scene is disclosed. You are to understand that the queer old showman has some acquaintance with the black arts. It is probable that from the moment when he first peered through the curtains of his booth you have suspected as much; indeed, if you share but a tithe of the superstitious instinct of the holiday-makers in the fair, you will have been at once convinced of it, and the sudden transformation of the sawdust puppets into the semblance of living, sentient beings (albeit a trifle odd and constrained in their movements) will have aroused little emotion in your ignorant mind except a gaping wonder.

The old rascal is, in truth, something of a magician. But though he has the power to endow his puppets with a certain degree of humanity, there is a limit to his skill, and the poor objects of his mischievous arts are but partially humanised—a kind of apish mockery of human flesh and blood. At bottom they are puppets still.

In worst case, because the most gifted with humanity, is the luckless PÉtrouchka. More nearly does the texture of his rag approximate to flesh, the thin sawdust of his stuffing to red and pulsing blood. Vaguely there stir within him the passions and emotions of a man—blind feelings to which he strives mutely, ineffectually, to give expression. He has learned to suffer—and no more.

The black rectangular chamber which the newly rising curtain shows us is that portion of the squalid puppet-box which forms PÉtrouchka’s home. Through the door that flies open the showman’s clumsy boot is seen, and the flimsy figure of the hapless doll, ridiculous in his pied and motley clothes, is impelled through the opening by a cruel kick.

For a time he lies in a huddled heap upon the floor, then woefully picks himself up, striving to collect his feeble wits. His pitiful frame is fired by yearnings which he does not comprehend. Aimless impulses stir him to spasmodic, inconclusive movements. He is the sport of he knows not what. In a sudden access of panic he darts to the door, seeking escape from his prison-like box to the life and gaiety of the outer world, from which he has been so rudely torn. There, but a moment ago, he was dancing, and if the applause was mingled with laughter at his ungainly antics, at least it was applause such as the ears of even a half-witted doll can greedily drink in.

But the door is shut. It lies flush, lacking handle or latch, with the wall, and PÉtrouchka’s puppet hands, with fingers stiffly glued together and muffled in black babyish gloves, fumble at it in vain effort. Pathetically he totters the length of the walls, groping wildly with his futile arms for an outlet. At last he finds one—a portion of the wall collapses—but it is only a hole pasted over with paper, into which the rickety figure of PÉtrouchka nearly disappears. It is no real outlet, it leads nowhere, and dimly the poor puppet realises that even here his hopes and aspirations are baulked. He is a prisoner, close pent. Mournfully he bemoans his wretched lot, his bitter discontent not lightened by ignorance of what he truly wishes in its stead.

Lacking the initiative, the constructive power, which full intelligence alone can give, PÉtrouchka can yet perceive his shortcomings. He passes himself in review, and finds satisfaction in nothing. His motions, gestures—who could admire such awkward angularity, such jerky, jumpy movements? Thus he reflects dolefully, as he strives experimentally to move his limbs with easy grace and rhythm. As to his clothes, such gaudy, parti-coloured gear is fit only for buffoons and clownish oafs, not for one who possesses (in how limited degree, poor fellow! he does not realise) the finer instincts. His motley shames him, his involuntary gaucherie moves him to anger with himself. Nothing is right; and with a travesty of emotion which excites a smile while it moves to pity, PÉtrouchka abandons himself to despair.

It is PÉtrouchka’s crowning agony that he believes himself in love. The object of his adoration is the Dancer, the radiant creature who occupies (in striped pantaloons and the sauciest of caps) the middle compartment of the puppet-box. Beyond lies the Blackamoor, a feared and hated rival. How vie with the latter’s rich and handsome dress, his dashing, martial bearing? The Blackamoor carries a sabre, and though it is PÉtrouchka’s exquisite privilege at periodic intervals to belabour his dusky rival with the stick he borrows from their mutual master, the attack (for all the feeble spite with which it is delivered) is but a mimic one—a mere comic interlude in the dance with which the trio are wont to entertain the grinning public. Of what avail in private such brief and sham ascendancy against the subtle, meretricious attractions of his competitor for the fair one’s favour!

Momentarily PÉtrouchka’s gloom is lightened by the unexpected advent of the Dancer, come upon a visit to the apartment of her love-sick swain. At sight of her PÉtrouchkas fears and doubts are dissipated on the instant. No deepening of the rosy patches on her cheeks encourages the extravagant demonstration of delight with which he greets her; nor does even a momentary softening relax the fixity of her stare. But PÉtrouchka, poor fool! takes no

note of this. He has learnt no art of restraint, and in the sudden revulsion of feeling effected by the apparition of his beloved, he rushes from one extreme to the other. Forgetful now of that gaucherie he was deploring but a moment earlier, unconscious of the ridicule his foolish garb excites, the hapless creature is betrayed, by the ill-disciplined vehemence of his rudimentary emotions, into ludicrous and preposterous behaviour.

The Dancer stands affrighted at the ecstatic transports of her would-be lover. Not in this antic fashion had she expected to be wooed. Deficient in the graces and allurements of a suppliant, PÉtrouchka lacks equally the masterful methods of the bolder kind of suitor.

He can but give an incomplete expression to the incomplete emotions with which his puppet’s breast is charged. The result is ludicrous, a mere fiasco. Where PÉtrouchka thought to excite admiration he arouses only contempt; he repels where he hoped to attract. The object of his passion, startled at first, but soon disgusted, retires in dudgeon, and as the hapless lover throws himself forward in a despairing effort to detain her the door is slammed to in his face. The curtain, descending, hides his pitiful fumbling as he tries the door anew.

At the other end of the puppet-box, as we see when the curtain next rises, lives the Blackamoor. A more expensive puppet than PÉtrouchka, despite less sensibility to the showman’s magic arts, the Blackamoor’s apartment has some pretensions to comfort. A wall-paper of violent hue and florid design (everyone who has played with a doll’s house will recognise it) serves as background to the oriental divan on which the Blackamoor reclines in luxurious ease.

Indolent and stupid, the rival of PÉtrouchka is happier than he. Less responsive to the showman’s baneful influence, the swarthy doll has been invested with but little more than the lowest of human appetites and instincts. No dim perceptions of romance are his; his brutish wits have not been sharpened, like PÉtrouchka’s, to the point of suffering. Lolling in his gaudy chamber, he passes the time in idleness and folly.

We see him, as the curtain rises, intent upon some clownish trifling with a coconut. Prone upon his back, with legs in air, he shows a doltish pleasure in juggling his toy with hands and knees. Presently tiring of this, his vacuous mind casts round for fresh amusement. A happy thought strikes him, and flinging himself off the divan he rolls over and over across the floor, clutching the precious nut, till suddenly he finds himself, with idiot leer, in sitting posture.

He begins anew his juggling, but the silly game has lost its savour. He drops the coconut upon the floor and stupidly blames his clumsiness upon the toy. Angrily regarding it, he flies into a rage, and fetching his sabre, slashes furiously at the object of his wrath. Failing to hit it, he next finds fault with his weapon, and flings it pettishly into a corner. The coconut still lies at his feet, and a superstitious notion creeps into his turbid brain. Retiring a few paces, he prostrates himself before this fetish that has defied his wrath and violence.

He begins a series of elaborate obeisances designed at once to propitiate the ire which he supposes the inanimate coconut to nurse, and cover the stealthy approach which he nevertheless makes towards it. He grins facetiously as his silly antics gradually bring him nearer the object of his desires. With a final prostration he achieves his purpose, and sprawls delightedly over the nut, just as the Dancer, fresh from her rejection of PÉtrouchka’s fervent but ill-proffered advances, enters the apartment.

Coquettishly in her hand the Dancer carries a toy trumpet, and with this to her lips, sounding a lively gallop, she foots it merrily to and fro. The Blackamoor, who took but little notice of her entry, is distracted from his fervent occupation with the coconut. Beguiled by the inspiriting strains of the trumpet, he watches her movements with increasing interest, rolling his goggle eyes from side to side as she trips it up and down.

With sudden ardour the Blackamoor starts up, and flinging away his wretched plaything, seizes and embraces his fascinating visitor. The latter seems nothing loth, and gratified by this easy conquest the Blackamoor seats himself to receive the homage of a further dance. The lady, eager to make the most of opportunity, exerts herself in even livelier fashion than before, and finds occasion to fall provocatively into her admirer’s arms. The Blackamoor is now entirely captivated, and when the Dancer begins, to a sugary, sentimental strain, a pas de fascination of which his sluggish wits at length realise himself to be the object, his fondness is grotesquely manifested. From the edge of his divan he fatuously ogles the fair one, and is thrown into transports of delight when she accepts a rapturous invitation to sit upon his knee.

The flirtation receives unwelcome interruption by the unexpected arrival of PÉtrouchka. Fired by jealousy, and impelled by his infatuation for the Dancer, he has escaped at last and come to seek her in the hated rival’s domain. But the poor fellow is so ineffectual that he cannot make even a passably impressive entry. In his blundering haste he gets caught in the swinging door and hangs there, half in the room, half out, an object of derision to his inamorata and her dusky swain.

Even when he has struggled free of this embarrassment and confronts the guilty pair, PÉtrouchka is pathetically at a loss. Tortured by vague fears, he has yielded to a vague impulse, only to find himself unable to deal with the situation he has so rashly sought.

Not so the Blackamoor, whose lower type of intelligence is beset by neither doubts nor fears. While the Dancer, with nice sense of propriety, goes off into a genteel swoon, he bounces angrily off the divan, and advances threateningly upon the intruder. PÉtrouchka, half urged by passion, half intimidated by force, and wholly at a loss, takes refuge in a futile demonstration, which has not the least effect. Gloating, like a true bully, over the discomfiture of his rival, the Blackamoor hustles him to the door, and with a vicious kick sends him flying across the threshold. Boastfully jeering at his defeated enemy, he executes, as the curtain comes down, a loutish dance of triumph.

Meanwhile the fair, to which the action of the ballet returns in the concluding scene, is still in progress. But evening is approaching, and the revels are beginning to take on a noisy, riotous turn. To swinging, pulsing music there is a dance of nursegirls and coachmen, which sets the feet of all who watch it sympathetically a-stamping. The advent of a performing bear, walking gingerly upright at the end of the chain which his owner holds, creates a small diversion; a more lively one is produced by the reappearance of the tipsy merchant, who scatters bank notes promiscuously among the crowd. The horseplay which has already begun receives a fillip from the inrush of a group of masqueraders (a devil with horns and tail among them) whose hideous disguises cause pretended alarm among the women and girls. Snow begins to fall, and under the play of flickering coloured lights, which spasmodically illumine the gathering dusk, the fun waxes fast and furious.

Of a sudden the crowd becomes aware of a great commotion inside the puppet booth. The curtains are drawn across the front, but their violent agitation, now at this end, now at that, indicates that something untoward is happening within. The passers-by pause and look curiously at the booth. In a moment the curtain at one end is flung back and PÉtrouchka dashes forth. Close on his heels the Blackamoor, brandishing his sabre, strides vindictively. The Dancer (agitated, but as pink and white of cheek, as glassy of stare, as ever) brings up the rear.

Fleeing in panic down the length of the booth, PÉtrouchka vanishes behind the curtain at the other end. The Blackamoor and Dancer follow. A wild commotion of the curtain at its middle part suggests a fearful struggle within. A moment later the three puppets dash forth again, PÉtrouchka still in front and seeking vainly to escape the uplifted sabre. In the middle of the market-place the Blackamoor overtakes his rival, and with a vicious blow fells him to the ground.

The spectators, up to this point too taken aback to interfere, crowd round in consternation. Hapless PÉtrouchka lies huddled on the ground, and though they seek to succour him, no sound but a painful squeaking comes from him. He strives to rise, but cannot; ineffectual to the last, he can compass nothing more dramatic at his end than a few indeterminate jerky motions and a last pitiful squeak.

An alarm has been given, and at this juncture a policeman approaches with the ancient puppet-showman, an odder figure than ever, wrapped in a voluminous black coat with a tall hat upon his head. The crowd, bewildered by the strange events just witnessed, draws back and watches the showman with puzzled curiosity as he bends over the prostrate figure of PÉtrouchka. Can it be they have been spectators of a tragedy?

The showman is in no wise disconcerted. Stooping, he takes hold of the bundle of gaily-coloured rags that lies so forlornly on the street, and lifts it up. It dangles limp and lifeless from his upraised hand before the astonished eyes of all. A corpse? Nothing of the sort—a doll! Incredulous hands are stretched out to touch, but there is no need of that. The showman begs the company to see for themselves. The head is wooden; the body (as a thin powdery stream falling to the pavement testifies) is stuffed with sawdust!

The crowd disperses. Satisfied that the tragedy was no tragedy, they yet feel a distaste for the scene of an occurrence so disturbing, and drift away to another part of the fair. The showman is left alone.

With a shrug the old magician moves towards his booth, trailing behind him the draggled figure of his puppet. As he nears the steps a shrill screech bursts upon his ears. He starts and looks fearfully about him, for he recognises the sound. Again the screech greets him, and looking up he espies, mopping and mowing above the cornice of the booth, the ghostly figure of PÉtrouchka.

The trailing bundle of rags and sawdust drops from the sorcerer’s hands. Horror-struck, he turns and flees.

“PÉtrouchka” is the joint work of MM. Igor Stravinsky and Alexandre Benois, of whom the former composed the music, while the latter designed the scenery and costumes. The restraint, the fine selective instinct, which Benois has shown in his manipulation of the wealth of material lying to his hand produces a most artistic result. The local colour is firmly, but without offending emphasis, insisted upon—that it is a Russian fair in which we find ourselves, there is no mistaking. Nor does he lack humour; nothing could be defter than the grotesque touches with which the rival puppets’ boxes are adorned, nothing more truly bizarre than the opera cloak and silk hat in which he garbs the fantastic showman for the dÉnouement.

In “PÉtrouchka,” as in “L’Oiseau de Feu,” Stravinsky shows himself a master of the art of writing ballet music. Throughout the four scenes he displays not only a nice sense of dramatic fitness, but a shrewd appreciation of character. Whether his theme is the quasi-pathetic sufferings of PÉtrouchka, the dollish coquetry of the Dancer, or the grotesque humours of the Blackamoor, he never fails to be expressive. In the treatment of such a subject as “PÉtrouchka” (described by the authors as a series of “burlesque scenes”) his humorous perception is of large assistance. In the trumpet dance, for instance, by which the Blackamoor is first inveigled into the fair one’s toils, or in the slower pas de fascination by which the conquest of him is completed, Stravinsky’s sense of the ludicrous has turned two slender occasions to most diverting account. Conceive a tender, sentimental passage between two grotesque dolls, and in these engaging little melodies you have the exact expression of the absurd situation. Even more ingenious, as a piece of clever orchestration, is a passage at the outset of the opening scene, where the composer succeeds not only in reproducing (with the merest note of burlesque) the peculiar sounds of an antique hurdy-gurdy, but weaves the opposition between two such competing instruments into a most entertaining and harmonious discord. As to the music which hurries the revels of the carnival upon their riotous course, it has the true note of full-blooded vigorous enjoyment—a rhythmic pulsing quality which belongs to the fresh and unsophisticated pleasure of simple folk not too much hampered by conventions.

“PÉtrouchka,” however, would fall short of its ultimate effect but for the subtle art of its interpreters. Kotchetovsky, as the Blackamoor, wonderfully realises the undisciplined temper and coarse appetites which are all of humanity that this puppet has acquired; and the Dancer, whether played by Karsavina or Nijinska, pirouettes or tiptoes with the exactitude of mechanical action. But to the presentation of PÉtrouchka Nijinsky brings more than mere cleverness. There is a touch of diablerie in his impersonation of the luckless puppet which most poignantly conveys the sense of atrophied humanity. It is not merely that from his jerky half-mechanical motions one can deduce the exact anatomy of the doll, a joint here, a loosely hung limb there; he puts the whole character upon a plane above the level of mere grotesquery. PÉtrouchka in his hands acquires a significance which places him amongst the centaurs and other half-brute, half-human creatures of mythology. That the ballet is thereby endowed with a meaning, an inwardness, which it might not otherwise possess, must be accounted as a tribute to the dancer’s genius.